Danger ahead!

Only you can control your future.

Dr. Suess

 

 Remember when you were 21, and your future stretched ahead like a ribbon of highway as far as you could see? And you thought you could see every curve and bend that was on that road and knew where it was going to lead you?

Oops.

We know better now, don’t we?

Who would have predicted a recession that would put us all behind the financial 8-ball and destroy our plans for retirement?

Or the need to divert some of our own limited funds to caring for an elderly parent?

Which then led us to think about selling our home generate those funds, only to remember that we refinanced only two years ago to get a lower payment……and stretched those payments ahead another 30 years? So, no equity means no selling.

Sigh…..

Sometimes we can’t see where the road is taking us, so it’s best to hang back and not speed along the highway without watching out for—even anticipating--the potholes and detours. How could I have known that I would need to sell my house the day I gave a huge “thumbs up!” to hogtying me to an unending mortgage? Or that maybe, just maybe, I SHOULD have sold my house just before the real estate bubble burst, when I thought about it, but then fell prey to inertia….and the mistaken notion that things would always be the same down that highway?

Circumstances change and people change. What looks like a well-paved road today WILL change. It’s the one thing we can depend on. The rest? Well, just be careful about assuming there isn’t a cliff just ahead up there out of sight on the road. It’s there, for sure.

Oh, yes, indeed……

 

Hope and a lot of change.....

Let’s talk about change. Not necessarily hope. Just change.

The kind that collects in the bottom of a woman’s purse or a man’s pockets.

Periodically I empty all of the coins from my wallet into a smaller change purse I carry so that my wallet doesn’t look like a chipmunk preparing for a bad winter. I’m not sure what I’ve gained, though, since all that metal is still weighing my shoulder down. It does seem to help for some reason that I can’t explain, though.

Pennies have their own repository in a ceramic dish in my kitchen. When they start falling out of the dish onto the counter, I gather them up and make a trip to that noisy machine inside the door of my local grocery store that whirs and sorts and counts and then spits out bills at me. Who said a penny has no value?

Here’s the thing I’ve been pondering, though. I’ve noticed that “older” shoppers (certainly older than me) must really hate change. There are many levels to this statement—many don’t react well to new ideas or ways of doing things or they haven’t taken the plastic off their furniture in decades—but let’s focus here on the coins that are the inevitable result of buying things. That kind of change. It’s just going to happen.  You give someone a $5 bill for an item that rings up at $4.27 and boom—there it is. Seventy-three cents to add to the collection in your wallet or pocket.

But seniors must hate the stuff beyond all reason, because the next time they step up to the counter to pay, here’s how it goes. Their purchases total $16.63, but rather than hand over the $10, the $5, and 2 one dollar bills, they start digging in their wallets or pants to come up with exactly sixty-three cents to add to the $16 they have begrudgingly pulled out. (We won’t even discuss the oft-seen option of attempting to ferret out the $1.63 entirely in change. My heart won’t take it.) And heaven forbid they use the $20 bill they have hidden in there. Not going to happen.

In the meantime, we all stand patiently (or not so much) behind them, watching this archaeological dig, as the clock tick-tick-ticks away our perpetually disappearing time. And maddeningly, all this searching sometimes ends with, “Oh, here!” as they toss bills on the counter anyway. They give up the quest, and we all sigh in relief.

Maybe legal tender for those over a certain age should ONLY be paper money. No change allowed at all for them. I’m sure merchants wouldn’t mind, especially if they round up to the next dollar when they see white hair approaching. None of us would mind, either.

That would be a welcome change, wouldn’t it?

We can always hope.

 What I like most about change is that it's a synonym for 'hope.' 

Linda Ellerbee 

Mirror, mirror on the wall......

I wake up sometimes and simply don't recognize my landscape any longer. Just when I had learned who peers back at me from the mirror every morning, strange happenings began obscuring that image and then started to make silly faces behind my back, startling me out of my new-found complacency.  Who would have believed we still have so much to learn at this stage of life?

I guess that's my purpose here, though. To alert all of you, especially my younger readers and friends, about what might lie ahead for you, too. All these surprises have been  a huge shock to my system, so I'm passing the lessons on to you. No charge, of course.

A few years ago I finally looked into that mirror, square on, and admitted that daily face-to-face contact with a partner doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. And I had embraced that reality, at first with some trepidation, and then I threw my arms around it with joy. I was free!

I had my work, my dance lessons, and my friends. A life lived with fullness and gratitude, one that fit me exquisitely. The quiet aloneness that once oppressed me enveloped me instead, hugging me with comfort and beauty, my time my own to fill or not, no questions to answer about timetables or destinations.

It worked for me and I loved it.

But many of us, whether paired or not, are facing a new challenge, one that didn't penetrate our awareness with any reality until it was our reality. Human that we are, we think it will never happen to us. Until it does.

My parents were inseparable. And then my dad's mind slowly fractured, piece by piece, until his essence was simply.....gone. His body continued to occupy the recliner in their living room, but he truly was not there. Finally, his body gave up, too, and my mother--his partner for nearly 70 years--was alone for the first time in her life. Ever.

What to do?

But you know, don't you? Doing the right thing in life tests us, challenges our comfortable reality, forces us to straighten our spine and then adjust that mirror to a new angle.

Maybe the lesson is to enjoy that reflection every morning of our lives. Accept where we are and be grateful that we are anywhere at all. And then be ready to tilt that mirror at a moment's notice.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

Maria Robinson



All about pacing.....

It wasn't a problem for a long time.....decades, actually.


When it became a problem, I didn't recognize it for years.


When I DID recognize it, I attempted to ignore it.


Finally, I accepted it with gritted teeth.


As we age, we find that our minds can outpace rings around our energy levels. At least that's the way it's been for me. In the morning, it sounds great to plan on attending an evening gathering with friends. Sure, why not? I say when I accept the invitation. That sounds like fun, and I like the people going, so count me in.


Oops. By about 4 PM, I realize my mistake. I've worked all day, intellectually at the office and then  physically at the gym, so I'm exhausted from head to toe and back again.

I was stymied by that for a lot of years, feeling as if I was exhibiting the "stick in the mud" mentality I was so often accused of in my 20s and 30s. (For good reason at that point in time, but the person inhabiting this skin isn't the same one who left the building a long time ago and I don't  like to be reminded of those days. I get a tad cranky when I even get a whiff of that phrase today.)


But then I realized that my energy  reserves were no longer at any "stick in the mud" levels (oh, the irony of it all, right?). It wasn't that I was sticking anywhere, to anything. My body simply couldn't keep up any longer. My life has expanded in ways that are often unrecognizable to me as I have aged. I dance, I engage in interval training that involves weight lifting, I seek out new adventures every month. I'm a lot more fun and I have fun in ways that I hadn't even dreamed of when I was decades younger.


I even hate writing this. It hurts. But reality must be faced, and this is it: We have to learn to pace ourselves as we move into the latter decades. (I did NOT say as we "get old," I hope you noticed that.) What that means on a daily basis is that I must view the events of the day, and into the evening, from a longer perspective than my younger years demanded.


If I work all day, hit the gym in the afternoon, and have some writing to do at home before I slide between my sheets to read before sleep, then I can't schedule a dance lesson that particular day. Or I have to change the gym to tomorrow, and dance today. And forget going out at night if I dance OR exercise within the same 24-hour block of day. Not going to happen. 


Yes, it's a hard reality to swallow. But those of you who are younger than me, heed my words here. You may think you are immune to what all of us ultimately face, whether it's cellulite in places you never even thought about or flagging energy levels. You're not. Sure, you can pay to have the lumps removed or buy pricey energy drinks, but the reality is still evident.


Thoreau spoke of keeping pace with our companions, and something about drums. I don't need to stay abreast of those folks. It just takes more energy to keep that drummer in sight at all.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau

A-HA!

It seems that we're never too old for an "A-HA!" moment. I had one hit me between the eyes the other day, right in the middle of a conversation. I was carrying on of my near-monologues with a new person in my life. Oh, he talks to me, there's no problem with that. We talk a lot. It's just that I have a tendency toward philosophical discourse and I sometimes verbally follow the thread of my  mental gyrations while my audience sits and waits it out.

Maybe that's why I have a change purse that says it all, right there printed on the side in bright colors: "Consider me a challenge!"

And that was the topic of our conversation. Relationships. Hunkering down for the long haul. Navigating the passageways flowing between two people who have already seen a lot, if not all there is to experience when someone catches another's attention.

Marriage and I have been bedmates a couple of times (pun intended, we need to have fun where we can in life), but not successful companions, I admit. I CAN be a challenge, although I'm also kind, patient, and loving. And we were talking about that when I said, "I'm just me, and I don't apologize for that any more."

Too many times we get involved with someone, all is well at first, and then we start trying to change that person to fit some mold we have in our heads of the "perfect" man or woman for us.

What's up with that, anyway? 

Two people come together for a reason, some traits that tickled the fancy initially. And then, over time, we start noticing things we wish were different. But we shouldn't be in a relationship to change the other person, or to be changed by them. If that becomes part of the deal, we need to keep looking.

But then it hit me: I can't change the other person, nor should I want to, BUT I can try to be the best version of me that I can possibly be. I like this person....a lot.....so why shouldn't I want to please him as much as possible? Won't that end up pleasing me, too?

I know my strengths, but I also am very familiar with my weaknesses, those characteristics that do not play out well in close proximity to other people.

For example, I know exactly when I cross the line from involved to controlling. My brain also can now monitor my mouth whenever I choose to do so, instead of watching in horror as I say things that cut deep, only regretting them, too late, as the blood from the wound flows around our feet.

Our skin may wrinkle, our memory may weaken, but it seems we always have the capacity to see new paths open up in front of us. Mine hit me squarely between the eyes with a mighty "A-HA!" that can improve my life in many ways. I'm not interested in changing HIM, but I certainly can improve ME in ways that I know are already there inside.

It is never too late to be who

you might have been.

George Eliot

Old dogs and new tricks.....

You have all heard it, too:

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Oh, yes, you can. I'm walking proof of it, so I have no patience for others in my age group (or older) who use the statement as their default excuse for everything.

You know, the ones who say things like, "I've been this way my whole life! I can't change now." Mutter, grumble, whine........

What they really mean is that they don't WANT to change. They want everyone else to pat them on the head, either literally or figuratively, and give them a free pass to demean, moan, belittle, and complain their way through the rest of their lives.

Don't plan on it around me, that's all I can say. Although I have no definitive explanation for it, I went through one metamorphasis at age 35 that reconfigured my personality and thus, my life. I often "joke" that I learned to talk at age 35 and haven't stopped talking since.

It's not a joke. Those who have been on the receiving end of some of my verbal dissertations can attest to it, too.

Then about a year ago I morphed again, but this time I know why. It was deliberate and well-planned, although it has worked better than even I had envisioned. I was bored with myself. Life presented itself to me each day in shades of gray, the mist hovering around my head like a perpetual storm cloud just waiting to envelop me. To be honest, it didn't matter to me if I woke up the next day or not.

And then a book offered me a way out of my ennui, and I embarked on a year of new experiences that has delivered me out of the gray mist.I dance through my days, I smile all the time, and most importantly, I have taken back my life.  It's up to me to be happy.....and I am.

So, don't default around me. I have no patience for it.

Plus, I'm just having too much fun to listen to you!

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davis